The Emerald Princess was a quiet ship this morning when I snuck out of the cabin at 7:30am and headed to the Botticelli Dining Room. Very quiet. In fact, I don’t know why I was actually awake by 6:30am (and then lay in bed trying to be quiet), other than I’m sleeping so well in this bed. Well, that plus the fact that our cabin is as quiet as a tomb. Best sleep ever on a ship!
Being the only one crazy enough to be in line for the dining room when it opened, I was again assigned to our “usual” table at the back of the ship overlooking the wake, and could see the sun shining on the water, a welcome sight after yesterday’s gloom. I dawdled and dawdled, with no place I had to be and G sleeping until a more sane hour on New Years Day. There was lots of group texting from both sides of the family sharing New Year’s greetings, and the fact that I could get them in real time on a ship at sea never fails to make me happy.
I took a coffee for G back to the cabin, just in case he was awake (the aroma woke him up). And speaking of that, we both really love the Lavazza brand of coffee that Princess is now using. In fact, G loves it so much that he actually drinks it at home. Thinking back to the old syrup-based coffee, it’s a huge improvement and leaves us with no need to buy specialty coffees.
I left again to go up to MUTS to watch the Rose Parade. It was fun, but I would have preferred to watch at least one Bowl Game on the big screen instead. We got nada, which was a little disappointing, but with an iPad and WiFi, I knew I could watch them on my own. En masse spectatorship is just so much more exciting.
Our arrival in Cabo San Lucas was scheduled for 1pm today, and because of that later arrival, the Botticelli Dining Room was open for lunch. Same table, same waiters (Paquito and Amul, and they wanted to know where G was this morning at breakfast). I’m posting menus but not photos of food (the exception being MTG luncheon) just because they simply never look appetizing, but the roasted cauliflower and Cobb salad with salmon was delicious. G has gotten me hooked on the chia seed and passion fruit yogurt parfait with mango, but he orders it as a starter and I get it as dessert.
Our view at lunch
Over lunch, my early wake up started catching up with me. Or maybe it was because my energy level relative to G’s was much, much lower. He asked me to look online to see which ships were going to be in port with us in Cabo today, and I struggled with it, because I usually use my iPad for such tasks. And I was still at it while he kept talking and continued to ask me to look up four more things. He was on to a sixth question when I finally found an answer to the first (by which point we had nearly arrived and could look out the window to see which ships were going to be in port with us today), and when I told him I was getting weary of being his personal researcher, he said he was just making casual conversation and none of this was important and I swear I could feel my brain just explode out of my ears. I felt exactly like Diane Keaton in Father of the Bride when she had just had enough of her husband, played by Steve Martin and face planted on the kitchen counter.
Yeah, exactly like that
After lunch, we walked out to the Promenade Deck to look around (it was a perfect weather day) and then returned to our cabin and here I have to back up a bit. We returned to our cabin late last night (actually, this morning) to find that we had no wash cloths. Here we go again. We returned after lunch today to find that we still didn’t have washcloths.
Our steward (name omitted to protect the innocent) was still in the corridor so I went out…to chat. I started by first telling him that I knew this was not his fault, but that the Emerald was the fourth Princess ship in the past six months on which we couldn’t count on having one washcloth let alone two when our cabin was serviced. Is it an inventory issue or a laundry issue? I found out that, on the Emerald, at least, it’s an inventory issue. He said that, though they had adequate washcloths at one point in time, so many of them have become stained that they can’t put them in the cabins. He showed me a few that had been folded and stocked on his cart that he couldn’t distribute. “Are they clean?”, I asked. Oh yes, just stained. “I’ll take them.” It took some convincing but I left with two washcloths. And then tonight we had two washcloths. I don’t have my contacts in when I wash my face; I won’t see stains anyway. But, really Princess. Go to Sam’s Club and pick up a couple hundred stacks of white washcloths!
It was only 1pm, but it had already been a day, so when G was chomping at the bit to go ashore as soon as we arrived, I wished him Godspeed, told him I’d be on a lounger on the Terrace Deck watching football on my iPad and asked him to call me when he got there. I couldn’t imagine anything - ANYTHING- I wanted to do less in that moment than wait for a tender and go ashore to a Cabo San Lucas overrun by four large cruise ships with north of 15K passengers. Talk about a feeding frenzy from the locals!
For the record, they finally called open tender about 4:15pm. Until then, in the midst of all the announcements regarding the 50+ tender groups, the CD made numerous announcements thanking people for their patience, which, reading between the lines, really means people were exhibiting ZERO patience.
I was watching the Rose Bowl on my iPad, loving that it’s finally Indiana’s time this year, when I first heard (because I had forgotten the game was yesterday, if you can believe it) that Miami beat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. I have never loved Miami more than in that moment (actually, I’ve never previously even liked Miami) and everything was suddenly right in my world. And, speaking of Bowl games, let’s just recall what happened two years ago today, shall we?
Sure, there’s been quite a fall since then, but we had our moment. Glad I bought the sweatshirt!
G didn’t stay long on shore (quelle surprise!), and returned saying it was very hot and crowded in Cabo (quelle surprise!) and he joined me in the shade of the Terrace Deck enjoying the breeze and view and the relaxing instrumental music that is played (not live) back there and generally having a much better time than being in a wall to wall mass of humanity saying “no gracias” a thousand times in response to pitches for taxis, time shares, skin care products, whale watching tours, fishing trips and boat rides to El Arco.
The best way to spend the day
Our original plan was to skip dinner, watch the sunset while grabbing something from the World Fresh Marketplace for dinner and then take a tender back to Cabo after dark just for the ride, which is quite pretty at night. Then, at 4pm, G suddenly thought he wanted to go to dinner in the DaVinci Dining Room instead.
He first needed to shower so, once again, I went down 35 minutes early to stand in line outside the dining room to get a table for two with Rex and Raol to emulate the traditional dining we enjoy so much but didn’t have and that, right then, is when I hit my limit. While I was waiting, I wrote a letter about our dissatisfaction with the fact that 1) we never could get a dinner reservation for any table size for this cruise and 2) adding this cruise a month ago erased all the perfectly satisfactory reservations we had made for the next three cruises and 3) no one, either shoreside or on the ship, seemed to care. Once we were seated, I took the letter to Guest Services and asked that they make a copy and send one to HGM and one to DRO. 52 days of waiting in line is not tenable. At least not by me.
I’ll keep you posted.
We watched from our dinner table as the Quantum of the Seas North Star observation capsule was in operation. Craziness, but, if the glass was clear enough (unlikely on a ship at sea), it would provide great pictures of El Arco.
Regarding the new dinner menus we’re seeing on this cruise…I don’t know if it’s because they’re new to us or because the food in general seems to be very tasty on the Emerald Princess, but I’m kind of enjoying them. I’m not saying at all that it’s expensive food, and the portions are getting tinier and tinier (though our next table mates ordered steaks tonight that were pretty large, salmon portions are barely 3 ounces), but I’m liking the food very much. Tonight’s quinoa and pomegranate salad with goat cheese was delightful. And G swung into the Elite Lounge after his shower tonight and had a Black Forest cake there that he raved about.
We didn’t even look at the dessert menu after dinner, because G wanted another piece of that Elite Lounge Black Forest cake, so we first raced to the forward Promenade Deck on Deck 8 for sunset (well worth the effort), then back to Club Fusion for the cake (also well worth the effort).
A cake that tastes even better than it looks
Coincidentally, when we were returning to our cabin to change back into shorts, there were three of us in the elevator, the third being (we discovered) the Food and Beverage Director, Antonio. When we found out who he was, I mentioned how good the food has been on board, and, in particular, last night’s dessert and the cake tonight. He was VERY happy to hear that, and said that the pastry chef on board has been with Princess for 41 years and is in a league of his own. It’s obvious. Too often cruise ship desserts look better than they taste; not so on the Emerald Princess. By that point we had arrived at our floor, G got off and I was getting off when Antonio said if he could do anything to make our cruise better to let him know.
🤔🤔🤔
G fled, but I stood in the elevator door and began to fill him in. He stepped out and started taking notes. When I told him of our reservations disappearing, he said he hears this all the time. I told him I had just dropped off a letter with Guest Services and that we couldn’t do this for 52 days. He said it would all get taken care of, but may take a few days. He listened, which no one on the ship has done yet.
I’ll keep you posted.
When I got back to the cabin, G asked casually, “Is he still breathing?” 😆
We rode a tender back over to shore just to walk around a little, thinking that the crowds would have died down, but it was still surprisingly busy. Besides the Quantum of the Seas, the Navigator of the Seas and the Carnival Firenze were overnighting or at least staying late, and young people were getting off those ships in droves. Cabo was really hopping tonight!
Another LiDAR photo taken with my iPhone 15 Pro.
It was actually pitch dark and I aimed my camera toward where I knew the rocks to be while we were on the tender, not even sure what I was photographing and this is the result. Technology like this on an iPhone is amazing.
Approaching the Cabo Marina after dark
Pirate boat party time
We were on the tender back to the ship (last tender from shore was at 10:30pm) when McGuy texted needing honeymoon location advice. I can count on…well, maybe two fingers…or one…probably one…the number of times that I’ve had to say no to my guys, but I had to tonight. Or at least, “Can we chat tomorrow instead?” It had been a full day and I was wiped out. I fell into bed…
…and then remembered that I’m blogging, and got to it. Happy 2026.
And, we’re off!
